Memorial Hospital Research Laboratories

The Ricardo Otazo Lab

Research

Ricardo Otazo
Ricardo Otazo, PhD
Vice-Chair for Research, Chief of MRI Physics; Member in Medical Physics and Radiology

The Ricardo Otazo lab develops novel magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) techniques for cancer applications including fast imaging, motion resistant imaging, quantitative imaging of physical tissue parameters, and real-time MRI-guided radiotherapy using advances in MRI acquisition and computational models.

The lab develops novel magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) techniques to increase imaging speed, improve motion tolerance, image physical tissue parameters, and guide radiotherapy in real-time using advances in MRI acquisition (pulse sequences) and image reconstruction algorithms. Highlights include:

  • Live motion-resolved body MRI using radial k-space and deep learning auto-navigation and dynamic reconstruction (Movienet)
  • Motion-tolerant pediatric MRI with reduced anesthesia
  • Generative diffusion AI techniques for image reconstruction
  • Real-time 3D MRI with a latency lower than 300ms for adaptive radiotherapy of mobile tumors on a MR-Linac (MRSIGMA)

Research Projects

The Ricardo Otazo Lab

Publications Highlights

Feng L, Block KT, Grimm R, Chandarana H, Kim S, Xu J, Axel L, Sodickson DK, Otazo R. Golden-Angle Radial Sparse Parallel MRI: Combination of compressed sensing, parallel imaging and golden-angle radial sampling for fast and flexible dynamic volumetric MRI. Magn Reson Med. 2014 Sep;72(3):707-17 https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24142845/

Otazo R, Candès E, Sodickson DK. Low-rank plus sparse matrix decomposition for accelerated dynamic MRI with separation of background and dynamic components. Magn Reson Med. 2015 Mar;73(3):1125-36. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24760724/

Murray V, Siddiq S, Crane C, El Homsi M, Kim T-H, Wu C, Otazo R. Movienet: Deep space-time-coil reconstruction network without k-space data consistency for fast motion-resolved 4D MRI. Magn Reson Med. 2024 Feb;91(2):600-6145 https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37849064/

Siddiq S, Murray V, Tyagi N, Borman P, Gui C, Crane C, Wu C, Otazo R. MR signature matching (MRSIGMA) implementation for true real-time free-breathing volumetric imaging with sub-200 ms latency on an MR-Linac. Magn Reson Med . 2024 Sep;92(3):1162-1176. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38576131/

O Cohen, VY Yu, KR Tringale, RJ Young, O Perlman, CT Farrar, R Otazo. CEST MR fingerprinting (CEST-MRF) for brain tumor quantification using EPI readout and deep learning reconstruction. Magn Reson Med . 2023 Jan;89(1):233-249. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36128888/

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People

Ricardo Otazo

Ricardo Otazo, PhD

Vice-Chair for Research, Chief of MRI Physics; Member in Medical Physics and Radiology

  • The Ricardo Otazo lab develops novel magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) techniques for cancer applications including fast imaging, motion tolerant imaging, quantitative imaging of physical tissue parameters, and real-time MRI-guided radiotherapy using advances in MRI acquisition and computational models.
  • PhD, University of New Mexico
  • BSc, Catholic University, Asuncion, Paraguay
[email protected]
Email Address

Members

Anthony Mekhanik
MRI Engineer
Anna Miranda
Administrative Assistant
Victor Murray
Assistant Member
Joel Jose (JJ) Nario
Radiology Resident
Mark Burgess
Assistant Member
Ouri Cohen
Associate Member
Can Wu
Assistant Member
Tamer Abdelrehim
Tamer Abdelrehim
Senior Research Scientist

Achievements

Open Positions

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Get in Touch

Disclosures

Members of the MSK Community often work with pharmaceutical, device, biotechnology, and life sciences companies, and other organizations outside of MSK, to find safe and effective cancer treatments, to improve patient care, and to educate the health care community. These activities outside of MSK further our mission, provide productive collaborations, and promote the practical application of scientific discoveries.

MSK requires doctors, faculty members, and leaders to report (“disclose”) the relationships and financial interests they have with external entities. As a commitment to transparency with our community, we make that information available to the public. Not all disclosed interests and relationships present conflicts of interest. MSK reviews all disclosed interests and relationships to assess whether a conflict of interest exists and whether formal COI management is needed.

Ricardo Otazo discloses the following relationships and financial interests:

  • NYU Langone Health
    Intellectual Property Rights

The information published here is a complement to other publicly reported data and is for a specific annual disclosure period. There may be differences between information on this and other public sites as a result of different reporting periods and/or the various ways relationships and financial interests are categorized by organizations that publish such data.

This page and data include information for a specific MSK annual disclosure period (January 1, 2024 through disclosure submission in spring 2025). This data reflects interests that may or may not still exist. This data is updated annually.

Learn more about MSK’s COI policies here. For questions regarding MSK’s COI-related policies and procedures, email MSK’s Compliance Office at [email protected].


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